Bergen

This handsome city based on an old trading port and situated on one of many coastal islands has a special attraction for my wife and I. We visited it in the first years of our marriage and before our first child was born and it was the first time we had travelled abroad together. We stayed at the Bristol Hotel – which I see is still in business -for just a couple of nights. We did the usual things, walking by the Hanseatic wharf Bryggen and the fish market and travelling on the mountain cable railway so that we could visit Edvard Grieg’s summer residence at Troldhaugen. The city has a history of appalling fires, the worst being in 1702 when many of the wooden houses were destroyed, but each time the houses have been rebuilt in the distinctive Norwegian style, painted in a variety of pastel shades.

A city with a population of a quarter a million, Bergen is now a centre for the enormous Norwegian North Sea gas and oil industry and its international airport at Flesland is the main heliport from which thousands of off- shore workers commute. A very different scene from the one we briefly knew and fondly remember. Its history and present contribution to the arts was honoured however when in 2000 it became the European City of Culture, reflecting the importance of the annual Bergen International Festival which has been going for fifty years and will happen again at the end of this month.

From Bergen we travelled on the Sognefjord ferry to spend some lovely days in the small town of Balestrand at the end of the fjord, which was a wonderful relaxing time. We remember walking in woods full of multi-coloured fungi, viewing a glacier (still there I wonder or a victim of global warming?) and an old church built like an upturned Viking ship. Although we try to go to new places rather than organise nostalgic trips, I entertain fantasies about returning to Balestrand one day. A magical place for me and hopefully not only because of the fabulous breakfast table which began – and sustained – our days!

We passed through Bergen a year ago on our way to Lapland for a winter holiday but had little time to catch up on our experience of 45 years ago. But it’s a lovely place to visit and a splendid introduction to the cool beauty of Scandinavia.

B.R.

Rome

So much of European history has a connection with Rome and the Romans. The remnants of ancient Rome and its imperial ambitions are strewn across the countries of the Mediterranean and into Western and Northern Europe. It feels as if we have some sort of investment in Rome, and when we visited the ‘Eternal City’ it was a little like coming home. Its language, it’s sophisticated architecture, its statuary and sadly its techniques of fighting and conquering are all part of our inheritance.

We arrived in Rome one summer afternoon and were given a fairly routine but interesting tour of some of the city and then early next morning were at the entrance to the Colosseum as it opened. It is vast and despite the ugly way it was often used, is strangely moving in its vastness and as a piece of architecture is an astonishing bit of engineering, built as it was in the first century A.D.

We opted out of a visit to the Vatican, with its ‘opulent arrogance’ as someone has said, having our own reservations about its dominance as a state within a state, as well as a distaste for the doctrinal authoritarianism which it represents. But we enjoyed being two of the many tourists in the Trevi Square watching the monumental baroque Fountain supplied by an aqueduct constructed in 19 BC and bringing water from the Salone springs, 20 km from the city. I can’t remember if we dropped coins in the fountain – to guarantee that one day we would return - but I expect we did. Everyone else was.

We were very impressed with the Pantheon. Built 1800 years ago and originally a temple for all pagan gods, it has a magnificent dome more than 43 meters high and the opening at the top, the oculus, is its only source of natural light. The temple was converted into a church in 609 and although adapted for that use, the marble floor still features the original Roman design. The tombs of the painter Raphael and several Italian kings are in the building. We loved it and had a great sense of Roman history as we wandered around.

This is a busy modern city, and the advantage of its massive – and often ugly – street development was carried out during the Mussolini years, is that the traffic congestion of many other European cities is largely absent. We have good memories of being there; less happy ones about a three hour wait in the airport at the end of the day!

B.R.